


Carpe Diem

by whitherwaywill



Series: one chapter wonders [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Cheating, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23499610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitherwaywill/pseuds/whitherwaywill
Summary: if you leave, was it love? was it really, really love?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Series: one chapter wonders [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689838
Kudos: 21





	Carpe Diem

“You’re leaving me?”

She sounds so small. So weak, so vulnerable. She hates herself fiercely in this one moment, can’t stand that she can’t stand here strong and cold and unreachable as he finally ( _finally_ ) breaks up with her.

“I’m sorry, Hermione. I loved you, and that’s why I can’t do this to you anymore.” And Ron doesn’t look back as he walks out the door.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hermione doesn’t know when she was first attracted to him. Doesn’t know when she stops seeing him as that ridiculous, gangly child who couldn’t be bothered to wash the dirt off of his face before he got on the train. Doesn’t know when those blue eyes stopped being watery and started being breathtaking. Doesn’t know when red hair stopped being garish and became striking.

Doesn’t know when she first fell in love with Ronald Weasley.

It was slow, she supposes. Slow and steady, throughout their constant fights and bickering and arguing, with poor Harry caught in between, begging them…

_“Please, I hate having my two best friends mad at each other…”_

_“Oh, I’m sorry, Harry, would you like me to change my personality to make it easier for you to get along with Ron?”_

Fighting and arguing and yelling like middle school children until they realised that it was all a show, they were fighting about nothing, and when he said, _Hermione, you’re such a stuck up swot_ he was really saying _Hermione, you’re beautiful_ and when she says _Ronald Weasley, you are insufferable_ she’s really saying _Ron, I love you_ , but they’re kids, really. And just because they had to grow up too quickly in some ways doesn’t mean they’ll mature just as fast in others.

She remembers kissing him at the final battle. It was all passion, all fire, all consuming…they might be heading out to their deaths.

Carpe diem.

Except when you might be dead the next day, that phrase takes on an entirely new meaning and it means kissing one of your best friends with an armful of basilisk fangs and the fate of your entire world on the line.

Was it love? Was it really, really love?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She’s lost.

She stands there, staring at the door, wondering where she went wrong, what she did wrong, wondering why he’d leave her like that –

Then a voice from the floo calls her name, _Hermione._ She looks over, and there’s Harry. He takes one look at her tear streaked face and says, _I’m coming through._

And he’s hugging her and he’s so real, so _there_ , and he found her. He found her and maybe they don’t know how this is going to work, how Harry and Hermione and Ron are still going to be Harry and Hermione and Ron when there’s no longer a Hermione and Ron, but he’s here and he won’t leave her.

She remembers his promise.

It was dark and it was cold because heating charms don’t really work when you’re in a tent on the run, and she climbs into bed with him. They press up against each other, trying to lend one another strength with their body heat.

 _He left_ , she says, still in shock, because Ron left. He actually left.

 _I won’t leave,_ Harry says, Harry promises. _Never._

And he keeps it. He keeps it until the very end, and then beyond the very end, when he dramatically appears to save Ginny (Ginny, his girlfriend, the love of his life, who he’s never actually told what happened in the tent on the run in the cold) and he’s keeping it now.

He’s keeping it now.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hermione lays in bed next to her best friend, staring at the ceiling.

Ron was who she was, and without him, she’s lost. But Harry found her. And Harry can always find her.

He stirs in bed next to her and she reaches out, a smile twitching her lips, as she removes those iconic glasses from his face and puts them on the bedside table. Smiles as she smooths down that dark hair, smiles as she lays back down and closes her eyes.

She loved Ron. But she’s always loved her best friend.

_(Sure, Ron cheated, but Hermione cheated first)._

**Author's Note:**

> i think I may have been in an odd mood when I wrote this one. either that, or super tired


End file.
